Dead Souls

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol is a famous Russian writer whose works are part of the golden fund of Russian literature and are an unchanging component of the school literature curriculum. His novels, novellas, and plays have been staged and adapted for film countless times.

One of his strongest works is the book “Dead Souls.” Only the first volume was published: the second—almost finished—was destroyed by the author. The plot is based on a poem, as Gogol himself designated the genre of the book—adventures of an adventurer who, in the era of serfdom, buys “on paper” peasants from landowners for cheap—peasants who, in reality, have already died, but are still considered alive up until the next census. Under these “revision souls,” the clever swindler intends to obtain land from the state. The writer vividly portrays characters and phenomena that, unfortunately, remain relevant even in modern Russia.